Robert D. King, Nehru and the language politics of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xvii, 256.

Abstract

Judgments regarding history do not figure prominently in the writing of many linguists whom I know. Such evaluations are rather the purview of world figures, their biographers and acolytes, and historians. But it is precisely a historical judgment that is the central concern of the present work by a distinguished linguist. King has a cause to plead in this book: He believes that Jawaharlal Nehru has not been treated well in the court of history with regard to his language policy, and he means to change this largely negative assessment. From the title of the book, one would have every right to expect that the book would, at the least, contain a narrative of the substance and evolution of Nehru's thinking concerning language policy for India; and the book does provide precisely such an account. In fact, King states (xii) that telling this narrative is his principal goal. But advocacy is never far from the surface. King forthrightly states that Nehru did a far better job of joining battle in India's language conflicts than he is customarily given credit for (xiii). Convincing the reader that Nehru has gotten a bad rap with regard to language policy is, I believe, the central aim of this book.